All in all we estimate you should be looking at something like 10->16 hours of play, depending on how l33t you are. Each zone takes progressively longer to complete (there are more nodes and enemies in later zones).

As for modding, not for Starscape 1. We could potentially return to Starscape and do a more elaborate sequel at some point, and I think we all would like to build it in such a way that it could be modded and such. But it's really down to whether/when a sequel is produced.

Just to test the water, who reading this would want (a) a sequel of sorts, (b) a sequel with mod support from the outset ??

Yeah, would like to see mod support and would definatly like to see a sequel.

Ive thought about it and im gonna buy starscape on monday (just have to get rid of girlfriend first,..)

One other thing though. I love the game and I like the idea of supporting a small company, however with no current mod support and a development time of x months - x years, how do u intend to maintain intrest in Moonpod games after the initial intrest of Starscape has died down?

best of luck and i look forward to blowing some aliens up come monday!

Our intention is to complete a new title every 6->9 months or thereabouts. Hopefully you all won't forget about us in that relatively short time

I agree that having support for mods in our games would be cool, but for Starscape it just wasn't possible. We had to develop (from scratch due to previous contractual issues), test (with limited test resources) and market a complete game in <9 months. Which we managed, just. There were a number of areas in the code that ended up being written specifically for this title, simply because the quickest and safest way to do that was to just code them directly in. We could have use scripting languages and such to add these features, but it would have significantly added to development time, and certainly added to test time, which we couldn't afford.

Now that we have a codebase to build on, we can look at how we can improve the various modules we have, in terms of compatibility, flexibility and performance (and possibly in that order). We don't intend to rewrite everything for every game, so having generic modules we can reuse is certainly a good thing from our point of view, and given a choice we would have rather developed moddable systems for Starscape, we simply had to make some sacrifices for this game due to the very tight timescale.

This seems to have turned into an explanation of why Starscape isn't moddable. Ah well, at least now you all know . In the future we'll be trying to make as much of each game data driven (i.e. moddable) as possible, within the constraints of that title. So in the future you should start to see more customisation possible as we progress.

One other thing we are considering doing in order to keep people interested in us is some sort of updates page where we show you how the next game is coming along. We were thinking of posting details on what we're doing, technical problems we come across and how we solve them, that sort of thing. Probably not a tome of knowledge (simply due to time, again), but hopefully something people might be interested in seeing. This is still in the "maybe, maybe not" stages at the moment, but I think it would be cool to let people know what's involved in making games.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the game. And let us know just how long it takes you .

Modding! I think I'd have as much fun modding stuff as playing the game - my skills (and software collection, I don't like using pirated stuff) isn't up to the task of modding most stuff these days, but I could handle things like campaign scripting. Modding is a must-have in any sequal for me, it adds so much to the replay value of the game.

[quote]Most of the games of this type that I really liked, (Star Control, Star Control 2, Solar Winds etc.) Didn't have any modding capacity at all. [/quote]

Allow me to preface this statement by:

Star Control? Are you kidding me? That was one of my least favorite games ever!

Sorry to introduce myself by hating on one of your favorites.

Anyhow, I don't think that modding/campaign building is immediately necessary, although it is a nice feature down the line. I think of Spidweb software's Blades of Exile title, and how that boosted popularity. This was their 4th (and last) release of the Exile series. Anyone looking for endless hours of gameplay will surely get a steal from that title! I can see a company using this strategy to keep a game fresh, and keep their company's game prominent while they need to spend an extended period of time developing the codebase to start the next series.

Multiplayer needs to be nicely done: There needs to be a variety of tactics. Any random collection of college kids can hack together a multiplayer space shooter (I'm thinking of my software engineering class's Starfire group), but to make something worth buying and playing more than 20 minutes requires some effort on gameplay and support. Again, example of good balancing: any Blizzard game (balanced gameplay and battle.net).

For me to purchase a sequel or expansion of any game, there are two prerequisites:
1. The original game had to be enjoyable.
2. The developers need to show me that they have come up with something, something that merited their development time, and merit's my additional support of their company. Example (good): Blizzard's Starcraft was originally going to be released with the Warcraft II engine, which would have been a flop, but instead they added another 2 years to the development and came out with something that continued to captivate their audience. Example (bad): Every Command and Conquer game is essentially THE SAME GAME.

So, in summation, a game needs to be significantly improved, but that could come from a number of different areas, not just campaigning/modding. That's just my take from a veteran gamer.